Hello and welcome to the first of the Doctor Who storyline reviews. Each entry reviews a certain story of Doctor Who. The stories from the classic series average out to around an hour and a half each making it easy to review them like movies. The newer ones will be a bit shorter however. That is what I am doing today: the Doctor Who Christmas specials. I’m not doing the End of Time one because that one is long enough to have its own review and Christmas is barely a theme at all in that one. I will be assuming that the audience has some basic knowledge of the series and I will not go into every detail about new companions and such. When I make this blog series more official with its own page, I will add in the introduction about the series.
Doctor Who: The Unquiet Dead (Series 2, Season 1, Episode 3)
“Since when did an undertaker hold office hours? The dead don’t die on schedule”
I love this episode; then again, I love most of the episodes. This is not my favorite Christmas Episode but it is one of the top three thus far. This first one actually did not air any time near December. However, it was still in the beginning of the season and I think this set that tradition of Christmas and Doctor Who as being synonymous—there are by now anyway.
The premise of this episode is that the Doctor, decided to give Rose, his latest companion, a trip to the future and a trip to the past. He tries to take her to Christmas, 1860, Naples, but as always gets it a bit wrong and ends up at Christmas, 1869, Cardiff Whales.
Turns out that it is all right because there is trouble afoot. Gaseous creatures called the Gelf whose bodies and planet were destroyed during the Time War, have found a rift (crack in time and space that generates massive energy) which happens to located conveniently at an undertakers. The gas creatures need bodies to live properly and so try to take the dead ones. Seems harmless enough. Also along for the ride is Charles Dickens. Yes, I know, Charles Dickens at Christmas with ghosts.
That is all I am going to say on that because I do not want to give away any real spoilers to people who may have not seen it but are interested in seeing it and have come to these reviews for just that purpose.
Charles Dickens is played by Simon Callow (not Simon Cowell) who is known for his outstanding acting—in fact, counting this episode; he has played the role of Dickens five times in various films. I love his performance and he really steals the show.
The episode is sad, heartfelt, does have a happy ending, and as with most Doctor Who episodes, has its comedic moments. I especially like these Christmas episodes which take place in the past because there is something fundamentally nostalgic about the holidays where people typically look back and go back to very old traditions, most which come from Victorian England.
I am not sure how to rate episodes of show like this one that I love so much. The camera work is done like a Masterpiece Theatre episode which I think is rather clever. It would be hard to rate them by how much I like them, it is much easier to rate the Classic Series or whole seasons so I guess I will not rate the new individual episodes. This episode is written by long time Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss who for years wrote several Doctor Who books, since the reboot has written several fantastic episodes, and has even acted on several of them.
Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion (Series 2, Season 2, Episode 1)
“Don’t you think she looks tired?”
This is the first official Christmas special and I love this episode, mainly because I love David Tennant as the Doctor, I liked Christopher Eccleston as well, but there is just something about Tennant, also I find it ironic that the tenth person to play the Doctor has the last name of Tennant.
The doctor has just regenerated and for those of you who don’t know, regeneration is something that Time Lords can do to cheat death that mostly revolves around a specific technology that harnesses the power of their world. Typically, a Time Lord can only regenerate twelve times. However, the Doctor can regenerate hundreds of times more because when his planet was destroyed, he acquired all of the regenerative powers of the all the dead Time Lords. When a Time Lord is dying every cell in their body will change and so they will have a new body. However, the process does not change who the person is and they retain all their memories. The first few hours or more after regenerating, a Time Lord will be disorientated, not know who or what he is, and have fluctuations in personality. However, the Time Lord is essentially the same person. While watching the show you can sometimes act out the scenes in your head with previous actors who played the Doctor and they still fit. The Doctor may change slightly or greatly depending, but some things about him will never change. Regeneration is allegorical for the changes that people constantly go thru as a result of their experiences, even though they are the same person underneath, they have different attitudes towards things and different likes and dislikes. The nature of the death also determines the regeneration because it is also advanced evolution where the next body should be able to more easily survive the thing that caused their previous deaths and the nature of a death can alter personality slightly.
Moving on to the episode. The Doctor lands on earth Christmas Eve and is not himself, like always, something has gone wrong with his regeneration and so he is confined to bed for most of the episode. Britain has sent out a probe to Mars that has plaque of various samples of Earth life and culture. However, it does not make it to Mars because it is intercepted by a giant ship. Turns out these aliens are hostile and much steeped in tradition fighting and war styles. However, the Doctor as always rises to save the day.
This is certainly one of the more Christmassy episodes. It has Christmas music (Slade—Merry Christmas Everybody) and even a Christmas Song written for the Doctor (Song for Ten). There are robot Santas and even a killer Christmas tree. Also, let us not forget that no Christmas is complete without a Christmas dinner.
I really enjoy this episode and this is the one that really made Doctor Who a part of British Christmas.
Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride (Series 2, Season 3, Episode 1)
This episode really does not have much of a Christmas element to it….I honestly do not know why I am reviewing this one now. Well, it does have the robot Santa’s again.
The Doctor has gone lost his\first companion since the reboot of the show, that is reboot not remake, all of the Doctor from 1963 and up is cannon with the new series…even that horrible 90’s movie…but I will review that for New Years. The co-star for this episode is none other than Catherine Tate, the comedian, who is playing Donna Noble.
Last season ended with a bride standing in the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) for no known reason. This is cleared up in this Christmas special. Donna has been being fed a liquid over the course of several months that is an outdated form of energy that is only found these days in the Doctor’s TARDIS. That is how she was sucked into it—the particles of the energy magnetized. Turns out it was so last of an old race of anthro-spider-creatures could rise out of the earth. Donna ends up saving the Doctor from himself once again proving that he is better off when he is not alone
The episode is fun but season three is my least favorite season of the new series.
Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned (Series 2, Season 4, Episode 1)
“Of all the people to survive, he's not the one you would have chosen, is it? But if you could choose, Doctor, if you could decide who lives and who dies that would make you a monster”
This episode is tragic but also fun and heartwarming which I suppose is typical if Doctor Who. Now gone thru two companions he is paired up with the very cute Kylie Minogue. Kylie was actually originally planned to be the Doctor’s next companion for season 4. However, after Tennant and Tate did a little comedic special together that did really well, the producers decided to bring back Donna as a full time character. This disappointed me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the character of Donna, however, the show hadn’t had an alien companion (Minogue plays the character of Astrid Peth from the planet Stowe) since the early days of the fifth Doctors (Peter Davison) reign and it would have been cool and creative to have an alien companion again after so long.
The premise of this episode is that like last time we ended with a cliffhanger except instead of a bride in his TARDIS, large cruise liner crashes into it and is sticking thru it because the doctor forgot to put up his shields. We also see that a life preserver reads “Titanic”
Come to find out it is not the actual Titanic but a space ship cruise liner that has the intended purpose of exploring cultures of lesser-advanced worlds, like the earth and their traditions, like Christmas.
There is an evil scheme to sink the ship, crashing it onto the earth, killing everyone on board and all the people on the Earth. This really is not a spoiler since this is somewhat obvious to anyone over 15, that the person behind all this is the owner of the cruise line company, Max Capricorn.
Also, an interesting fact, the actor who plays Mr. Cooper (Clive Swift), who is known best for his character on Keeping Up With Appearances, has been on Doctor Who before. He played Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks back in 1985.
(Funny how, Fox has a problem with the Muppets portraying capitalists as evil villains but no problems with this—probably because it is British but still, Doctor Who each year has been getting steadily more popular in the USA specifically there has been a huge rise in the last three years.)
This episode is more Christmas themed than Bride and even has a Christmas song like Invasion called The Stowaway. This song is actually quiet old. If I am not mistaken, it is an old traditional Christmas song from Ireland that until Doctor Who had not had an actual recording. There are also killer Christmas Angels. The episode is powerful for lovers of Tennant and lovers of the classic series as this episode has many elements from the old days, most of which are subtle but a few really hit you in the face.
Doctor Who: The Next Doctor (Series 2, Season 4.5, Episode 1)
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqhKwTlfsls&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL31A9D5AF12CCB25E
“Ladies and Gentlemen! I know that man— that Doctor on high! And I know that he has done this deed a thousand times. But not once, no sir, not once— not ever!—has he been thanked. But no more as I say to you on this Christmas morn, "Bravo, sir! Bravo!"”
This is another of my favorite Christmas episodes, again, I think it has something to do with it being in Victorian times—taking place almost two decades before Unquiet Dead in the year 1851.
The premise is that the Doctor runs into someone else calling himself the Doctor who knows of a few things only the Doctor who know, so the Doctor assumes this is one of his future regenerations—the next doctor. The enemies they face off this time are the Cybermen.
The Cybermen were originally allegorical for the 50’s western concept of communism but evolved past that. Cybermen have had several shapes and designs. The most recent one is a robot body with a human brain. Like the original alien Cybermen, the concept was laid out with good intentions: to take away the pain and suffering of emotions, physical pain and differences. Cybermen take away gender, class, religion, race, and age so that everyone is equal. However, they are a hive mind typically and have an emotional inhibitor so that they do not realize what they are because if they did it would drive them insane.
They are up to their old tricks trying to “upgrade” the world and this time are building a giant Steamman to make it easier to take over the world. If you are a fan of steam punk, this episode is for you!
I particularly like the ending.
Also, if you notice, every Christmas episode thus far, has at one point played God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen in the background.
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (Series 2, Season 5, Episode 1)
“Half way out of the dark”
You all know how much I love the story of A Christmas Carol and this version is no exception, in fact, it is a very clever and creative reimagining of the story.
Amy and Rory (the doctor’s latest companions) having gotten married at the end of the previous episode, are on their honeymoon. Problem is, the cruise space ship that they are on, called the Orient Express, is having a bit of trouble crash landing on the nearby planet because there is a machine that controls the cloud layer for some reason and it is owned and operated by a very mean and bitter old man called Cazran Sardic, our sci-fi Scrooge equivalent. The reason he is such a warped man is that his father beat him and was a cruel, shrewd, power hungry man. Now, something else about this episode that is exciting other than the fact it is a play on A Christmas Carol is that Cazran is played by none other than the great Michael Gambon. For those of you who do not know, Gambon has had many great roles big and small. Off the top of my head, I can think of: a Vogon in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie, Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies 3-6, Bean, in Fantastic Mr. Fox, the newspaper editor in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the crazy general in Toys, and a cannibal in The Book of Eli.
Since the Doctor has a time machine, it is very easy to change and show Cazran his past, present and future. The past is primarily the Doctor going back to Cazran’s childhood and being there as a role model since he had none and giving him good memories and fun adventures in the TARDIS with a girl, Abigail who was frozen, alongside others in Sardic’s basement. Cazran’s father runs a loan business just like Scrooge, a business that Cazran will take over, and for collateral, he takes people. The Doctor unfreezes her every Christmas to spend time with Cazran. Eventually, Cazran’s age catches up to Abigail’s and they fall in love. However, an unfortunate circumstance keeps them apart and undoes all the good work the Doctor had done.
The present is a hologram of Amy showing Cazran what is happening on the ship and all the lives that will die because of him. For the future, the Doctor shows the child Cazran the future Cazran and how he has almost become exactly like his father.
The episode of course ends the way A Christmas Carol does with Cazran a new man and a relatively happy but slightly sad ending with a fantastic song.
This is my favorite Doctor Who Christmas special. It is very creative, the cinematography is fantastic, Gambon is amazing as usual, and the affects are great.
Doctor Who Christmas Special 2011:
This year’s episode is another Doctor Who adaptation of a classic story. Last year it was A Christmas Carol, this year it is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The episode is titled The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe, and the trailer can be found here:
You can be sure I will be watching it and will immediately add a review for it right here.
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